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Imran Tahir – It’s just not cricket

Congratulations to Imran Tahir on his match winning performance for South Africa today.

But I have to say that I am appauled by his presence in the South Africa team, it’s just not on.

As an Englishman, I am incandescent with rage at the sheer cheek of South Africa picking a Pakistani to play for them, how can this be?

At the ripe old age of nearly 32, how the hell are we supposed to poach him now?

After just going through a lenghty qualifying process to play for South Africa, he is hardly going to do the same at his age to come and play for England now, is he?

Assuming he turns out to be any good, we could have done with him. Especially with Samit Patel also letting us down. If South Africa continue to behave in this manner, they could destroy the England cricket team. We can’t continue to rely on just Ireland.

Mushtaq Ahmed, tonight you should be hanging your head in shame. ECB, an absolute disgrace. It’s not as if they didn’t have any pre warning of what South Africa’s intentions were, as they tried to pick him against us 13 months ago.

It’s not as if Tahir owes nothing to England either, because he does. He has played for Hampshire, Middlesex, Yorkshire and last year he played for that well known finishing school for quality England players, Warwickshire.

This is no way to pay us back for our investment in him.

If it wasn’t for English cricket he could still be languishing in the Pakistan International Airlines team, or maybe the Water and Power Development Authority first XI, or even worse, Staffordshire!

How dare he!!

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11 Comments

  1. Lol. ECB should nick some South African born players instead….then again, they would never stoop that low would they? 😉

    On a serious note Dean; what were the Stanis doing?! Tahir really wanted to play for Pakistan but for some reason or another, he is now been allowed to slip away. Will be a big tournament for him. SA look menacing. Cant see a weakness….batting, fielding, pace, spin….all bases covered…..apart from choke-ability that is.

    A question on betting odds Dean; you know you gave me SA’s odds on a previous post with them being 5/1 for which I’d get £5 for a £1 bet…..sometimes I see odds the other way around like 1/5, so what does that mean i.e what would that give me in return?

  2. P.S,
    Dont worry, you wont turn me into a gambling addict! I am completely aware that it is a losing game 🙂

  3. First of all, you are totally right, it is a losing game. I treat it as a bit of a hobby these days. Just a few quid for a bit of fun.

    The odds the other way round (1/5) means, you would need to put £5 on, just to win £1. 1/6 would mean, you put £6 on to win a £1, etc, etc.

    In all these cases you get your (stake money) £5 or £6 back as well. So for your 1/5, you put £5 on, win £1, and all-in-all you get £6 back.

    I hope I’ve explained that properly?

  4. I was quite surprised too see his age. I knew he’d been around for a while but I didn’t realise he was as old as he is, although for a spinner he still has 5 plus years left in him.

    I am very surprised that Pakistan didn’t want him, if thats the case.

    I have to admit I don’t know his story and how he came to end up playing for SA, except to say that it’s obvious from his record that he has played a lot of his cricket outside of Pakistan.

    I also know that last year he was Warwickshire’s bowling match winner, so it was a fair bet that he was going to be good enough to make the step up to international cricket.

    I don’t know what PCB were playing at, I assume he would get into the current side? Maybe in the past they always thought they had better spinners so weren’t too concerned at him deciding to play elsewhere. It’s a strange one.

  5. Anonymous

    Howdy Dean! You’re in good form! 🙂

    And I too think Pakistan (and England!) have let slip a quality spinner…and a genuine wicket-taker. And I’m sure Proteas fans would be very excited…for the 1st time they now have a spinner with the potential to make a match-winning impact. Look forward to his battles against India, SL and Pakistan.

    As for the PCB…they almost make us Indians treasure the BCCI! 🙂

    -BP

  6. Good to hear from you BP.

    Yes, one thing I think we all have in common is our own national boards, the ECB fill us with pride as well. Just look at the Allen Stanford affair.

    It will be interesting to see how Tahir does at the business end of the tournament, but first impressions are that he looks like he will have a big say in things.

  7. Anonymous

    I particularly like Tahir’s wrong one…we’ll have to see if better players of spin can pick it up. And it turns too.

    (As an aside, it always struck me that Warne could never master the wrong one. In fact, he even fell lbw to Tendulkar’s wrong one in that famous Test at Eden Gardens! Of course, English and Proteas fans would tell me that he did just fine without it! 🙂

    Lastly, the one Proteas bloke who’ll be a little blue is Paul Harris! His Test career may just have ended…

    -BP

  8. BP, there was a time when Warne could have bowled anything – and I include ‘Oranges’ – against some English batsmen, just the sight of him, got him ‘god knows’ how many English wickets such was his prescence for a few years after that ‘Gatting Ball’.

    Pre 2005 certain batsmen were just petrified of him and were already out before they even got to the wicket.

    There was a South African he had in his pocket as well, I think it was Daryll Cullinan.

    I didn’t know that about Sachin, yet another string to his bow.

    What a loss on test cricket losing Paul Harris would be!

  9. Thats a bit harsh on Harris I suppose, I could just never get the bloke, though.

    I understand what his role is in the side, and he does it well. I just don’t understand how he keeps on getting away with it.

    The time he got up to test No.7 in the world was unbelievable. I haven’t checked too see if he ever got higher, but I can remember him up at 7.

    One bit of commentary that stuck in my mind about him, was hearing Geoff Boycott saying on TMS ‘he’s a good bowler that Harris, he keeps finding the middle of the bat,’ I thought it pretty much summed Harris up in one sentence.

  10. Dean,
    Sure, you do get the odd time when bookies give decent odds on a particular outcome in a sport you’re familiar with, and it is worth a punt then. But I guess every addiction starts with just that one sip. It’s good you have control of it though mate.

    Yep, I get the explanation.

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